Not hard to tell what area he'd have been sitting in. This was one of the contributing factors to a period of time when people insisted on sitting in the tail area of the plane.

Why was such a big plane so empty?

Ok... But really. What is that a 777? Half the seats were empty. I've never been on a flight with that many (percentage wise) that were empty.

Seems like the flight shoulda been on a 737, dc10, or the like.

Believe it was a DC 10 or L10-11

How long has it been since you could smoke on a plane?

a lot of times there are flights like that when the companies have to move their planes around for other long flights. If I remember right my dad was on a redeye on a 777 where there were only 10 people or so on the plane from seattle to houston

L10-11

They were picking up people in Dallas headed for Cali from FL.

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Ok... But really. What is that a 777? Half the seats were empty. I've never been on a flight with that many (percentage wise) that were empty.

Seems like the flight shoulda been on a 737, dc10, or the like.

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Flights used to be empty plenty of times, it probably the reason so many airlines went broke.

I remember a flight back from Washington DC, is was a 727 and there were less than 10 of us on the plane. I had other flights with similar numbers.

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How long has it been since you could smoke on a plane?

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1990

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How long has it been since you could smoke on a plane?

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1990

Cool info about the old flights

I've been in a red eye 737 where the crew outnumbered the passengers. The only reason the flight actually left was that plane had to be in Houston first thing in the morning. Really odd flying in a nearly empty plane.

The business models for airlines was a lot different back then. More bigger planes flew more shorter routes.

It took them a while to get to the efficiencies they have today. Remember that is just 20 years into jets taking over.

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I was on a SWA flight from Love to Bergstrom, we made 3 attempts to land that were aborted due to the microburst warning alarms going off. I hate to fly and was seated in the front row next to a blind lady that wanted updates. She asked me who was praying and so I looked around, it was the flight attendants. They were holding hands and praying loudly for our safe landing, it was a bit unnerving.

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Must be a SWA thing. Same thing happened to me LAX to HOU a few years ago. Aborted landing due to a thunderstorm burst causing cross winds to high to land. It happened just as we were about to land. I could see the top of hotels at eye level when the pilot powered back up into the sky. It's a bad feeling when you hear winds blowing against the side of plane, then the little pings, which was small hail.

I turned around to check out the situation when I see the flight attendants praying. The next 20 minutes were some of the worst in a plane I ever had. You try to fight the turbulence for so long, then you just give up. So we finally land to lots of crying. Most folks were in shock. I was on the back row as I was on stand by, and I waited till everyone was almost left. The pilots stayed in the cockpit. Guess they didn't want to be seen. I asked the flight attendant how bad was it. She said second worse flight in 20 years of flying.

I didn't think it affected me. I felt drained. Next time I got on a plane, I sweated through my shirt. Guess it impacted me more than I thought.

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The business models for airlines was a lot different back then. More bigger planes flew more shorter routes.

It took them a while to get to the efficiencies they have today. Remember that is just 20 years into jets taking over.

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Also need to remember deregulation didn't fully take place until the mid-80s. Airlines had more ability to regulate routes and pricing after that.

Though fairly recently I've flown IAH->IAD on a nearly empty 764. I always enjoyed taking that flight since the plane was set up in an international config.

Company plane in 2008... Westwind 200

We missed our first approach into Marfa. On the second approach the pilot in command saw the runway and went for it. Marfa is uncontrolled. The runway was essentially flooded. We hit the ground and slid sideways three times, coming to a complete stop on the third slide halfway sideways. When they straightened it out the second time I could see out the cockpit window, we didn't have enough concrete left to go airborne again. We were committed and still hauling butt with enough fuel on board for an alternate destination.

That's when I learned you cannot be scared enough to soil your britches. I was pinched off tight!!!

Later learned the pilot in command was already planning his second missed approach and the new destination when the runway appeared.

The turbulence for the past half hour, including having my head slammed against the fuselage repeatedly, despite my seatbelt tight was beyond miserable! I was in a sideways facing seat. I just wanted to be on the ground, I didn't care how at that point. Anything at all was preferable to that!

Had to get back on that plane 5 hours later for the flight home. Smoothest flight I've ever taken.

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a lot of times there are flights like that when the companies have to move their planes around for other long flights. If I remember right my dad was on a redeye on a 777 where there were only 10 people or so on the plane from seattle to houston

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I was on some big ass plane in 1996 flying from Miami to Houston on my way back from Puerto Rico. I think there were 8 people on the flight including me, plus 5 flight attendants. Drinks were free and the flight attendants just sat around shooting the **** with us. Was a very odd but very fun experience except for a bad wind shear we hit going off the west coast of Florida. We dropped a long way very fast. Then we all got very drunk, minus the crew.

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I had the exact same experience minus the wind shear this December coming back from Puerto Vallarta to ORD on a United 737. There was a huge passenger load going to Mexican resorts since it was a couple of weeks before Christmas and hardly anybody going back at that point. Best flight I've ever been on.

Wow, at least when you hit turbulence now, you can say "This is nothing!"

The worst flight I ever experienced was returning home after the Holiday Bowl loss. I was flying Continental from Houston to Dallas. Due to bad weather, the plane sat on the tarmac for 2 hours before finally taking off. Shortly after, the plane started to bounce up and down violently, similar to a roller coaster ride. The tension was somewhat alleviated by the young kid several rows in front of me that yelled "weeee" whenever the plane jumped. I didn't really get scared until I saw the male flight attendant leaving the cockpit, and he was white as a ghost.

We finally made it to the DFW area, only to circle the airport for over 2 hours until we ran low on fuel. We finally headed back to Houston, and landed, a 6-hour Houston-to-Houston round trip. The pilots never told us anything, but we later learned that we were dodging tornadoes. Afterwards, a lot of the passengers rented cars to get to Dallas. I managed to get on a later flight.

My worst personal one was flying into Cairns Australia on a 737. They thought they were going to be able to beat the hurricane, but we didn't. Pilots came over the PA told everyone it was going to be rough but don't worry the plane can take it, also told us to put away anything that we wouldn't be holding because it would fly around the cabin. There were times that the plane just fell for seconds. They did a great job though, was glad when we were on the ground on that one. Flooding getting to the hotel was fun though

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The business models for airlines was a lot different back then. More bigger planes flew more shorter routes.

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Long, long ago, airlines flew into a lot of smaller airports. The government subsidized service, so there were flights into a lot of cities that would not otherwise support an airline, I have vauge memories of seeing someone off from the airport at Plainview in the early 1960s. The plane was a DC-3 as I recall. For those who don't know, Plainview is between Lubbock and Amarillo, and had less than 20,000 people.

I still remember Metro airlines flying flights up to Intercontinental in Houston from a strip down in Clear Lake...

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The business models for airlines was a lot different back then. More bigger planes flew more shorter routes.

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Long, long ago, airlines flew into a lot of smaller airports. The government subsidized service, so there were flights into a lot of cities that would not otherwise support an airline, I have vauge memories of seeing someone off from the airport at Plainview in the early 1960s. The plane was a DC-3 as I recall. For those who don't know, Plainview is between Lubbock and Amarillo, and had less than 20,000 people.

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Yep. And they still do subsidize flights into certain airport. Can't remember the name of the program but it is more limited now. Happens a lot in Alaska and other western states. Pretty sure the Yakima WA flight on Horizon is subsidized.

It needs to rain somewhere

We'll get a little next week. Looks like 1/2" to 3/4" around most of the state.

Essential Air Service

Menard to San Saba got 2-4" today. Buchanan may fill up before June.